Fated to the Mad Alpha, Pregnant with His Twins

Everyone said a Wolfless woman should be grateful for any Alpha willing to touch her.

Six doctors tested me and stamped the same verdict across my life: defective.

Then Ethan Blackwood chose me.

For three years, I shared his apartment, memorized his coffee order, and convinced myself his staying meant I was finally enough.

That morning, I carried two warm lattes into Pack Corporation while Chloe streamed to thousands of wolves.

She swung the camera toward my stained cardigan and called me “the Wolfless.”

Then Ethan walked through the crowd in the charcoal suit I had picked for him.

He put one hand on Chloe’s waist and kissed her while the comments laughed at me.

The cups slipped from my fingers and burst across the marble.

I waited for him to call it a stunt.

He only looked at me like I was a failed investment.

“I can’t gamble my bloodline, Elara.”

“You can’t shift, and you can’t bear strong pups.”

“Chloe is my Fated Mate.”

“Our contract is over.”

***

The coffee was still warm.

Two cups. One for me, one for Ethan. I’d picked up his usual—oat milk latte, extra shot, two pumps of vanilla

—from the café across the street. Three years of memorizing someone’s coffee order. Three years of thinking that meant something.

The Pack Corporation lobby buzzed with its usual morning chaos. Suits. Heels. The low hum of wolf-energy that I’d never been able to feel but had learned to recognize by the way others reacted—the slight head tilts, the unconscious deference, the way space opened around certain bodies and closed around others.

I adjusted my glasses and kept walking.

That’s when I saw the crowd.

Forty, maybe fifty people circled around the central fountain. Phones raised. Someone was laughing—that high, performative laugh that curls at the edges because you know you’re being watched. I recognized the sound before I recognized the person.

Chloe.

The Pack’s PR Director. Top-tier influencer on PackNet. A golden wolf with a golden smile and a following that could start or end careers with a single livestream.

She was holding her phone at arm’s length, the front camera catching her perfect angles. The screen behind her showed the live feed, comments scrolling faster than anyone could read them.

I should have turned around.

But I was holding Ethan’s coffee, and Ethan was supposed to be in a meeting on the fourth floor, and I was a good girlfriend—or at least I thought I was—so I kept walking toward the elevator bank that would take me past the fountain.

Chloe’s head snapped toward me like she’d smelled blood.

“Oh my god, guys,” she said into her phone, her voice pitched for maximum audience engagement. “Look who it is. The Wolfless herself.”

The lens swung toward my face. I blinked, my reflection caught in the dark glass of her camera like a deer in headlights. My hair was frizzing from the humidity. My cardigan had a coffee stain from this morning. I was wearing my backup glasses because my good ones had broken last week and I couldn’t afford new ones.

The comments exploded.

SHE STILL WORKS HERE???

how is she even allowed in the building wolfless freak probably mops floors no wolf no worth lol ethan wake up challenge

@EthanBlackwoodAlpha dump the dead weight already

I watched them scroll. Hundreds of them. Thousands. My chest went tight, but I couldn’t look away from the screen. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, except I was the car, and the crash was happening inside my body, and everyone was filming.

“Chloe,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

She tilted her head, a perfect imitation of sympathy. “Aw, sweetie. Did you bring coffee? Is that for Ethan?”

The crowd parted.

Ethan strode through like he’d been waiting for his cue. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The kind of jawline that made girls on PackNet leave thirsty comments. He was wearing the charcoal suit I’d helped him pick out last month, the one I’d told him made him look like an Alpha who mattered.

He didn’t look at me.

He looked at Chloe.

His hand found her waist. His fingers splayed across her hip like they’d done it a thousand times before—and maybe they had, maybe I was the last person in this building who didn’t know, the idiot girlfriend who brought coffee and believed in loyalty.

Then he kissed her.

Deep. Slow. The kind of kiss that wasn’t just a kiss—it was a performance. His tongue slipped past her lips, and the crowd cheered, and Chloe’s phone caught every angle, and the comments went nuclear.

KING

THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT

Wolfless girl is still standing there omg the secondhand embarrassment is LETHAL can someone check if she’s still breathing

When Ethan pulled back, Chloe’s lip gloss was smeared, and she was glowing, and he was smiling, and then— finally—he turned to me.

His eyes were cold.

“I can’t gamble my bloodline, Elara.” He said it like he was delivering a quarterly report. Flat. Professional.

“You’re a Wolfless. You can’t shift. You can’t access your wolf. You can’t even bear strong pups. What kind of future would we have?”

My hands were shaking.

“Chloe is my Fated Mate.” He said it like it was obvious. Like I should have known. “Our contract is over.”

The coffee cups slipped.

I felt the cardboard leave my fingers before I registered that I’d let go. They hit the marble floor at the same time, both lids popping off, brown liquid splashing across my canvas sneakers. The stain spread fast. Dark.

Permanent. The same color as the comments still scrolling across Chloe’s screen.

SHE ACTUALLY DROPPED THEM this is the best livestream of the year packnet is eating GOOD today imagine being that pathetic

Wolfless tears are my favorite flavor three years wasted lmaoooo

Someone in the crowd snorted. Then someone else laughed. Then the lobby was full of laughter, and it was sharp, and it was everywhere, and I couldn’t breathe.

My brain was making a sound like static. White noise. Everything else—the laughter, the comments, the way

Ethan’s arm was still wrapped around Chloe’s waist—felt distant. Muffled. Like I was underwater.

I ran.

The front doors burst open under my palms. Rain hit my face like a slap. I was running before I knew I was running, my sneakers squelching with coffee and rainwater, my glasses fogging up so badly I could barely see.

The streets in the Alpha district were empty. Who would be outside in this weather? Only an idiot. Only a

Wolfless who didn’t know her place.

I ran until my lungs burned. Until my legs gave out. Until I collapsed in an alley somewhere between the financial district and the private estates, my knees hitting wet gravel, my hands sinking into mud.

The rain kept falling.

I couldn’t stop crying. Ugly, gasping sobs that tore their way out of my throat. Three years. Three years of being patient. Three years of telling myself that being Wolfless didn’t matter, that I was enough, that Ethan loved me for who I was—and it was all a lie. He’d been embarrassed of me. He’d been waiting for someone better. I was just a placeholder until his Fated Mate showed up.

I pressed my forehead to the wet ground.

I’m nothing. I’m a Wolfless. I’m a waste of space. I should just die right here.

And then—

Oh, for the love of the Moon, SHUT UP.

I froze.

The voice was inside my head. Not a thought. A voice. Distinct. Sharp. Female. And absolutely furious.

Three years of listening to that Beta loser’s cheap cologne and his mediocre opinions, and now you’re going to cry over him? I’m going to be sick.

“What—” I whispered.

Finally. FINALLY. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to crack? I was starting to think you’d spend your whole life simping for that spray-tanned disaster.

My heart was pounding. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. I was Wolfless. I’d been tested. I’d been tested six times, by six different physicians, and every single one of them had said the same thing. No inner wolf. No shifting potential. Defective.

Defective my tail, the voice snapped. I’m Kira. And I’ve been here the whole time, waiting for you to stop being such a doormat so I could finally—

She stopped.

Just stopped. Mid-sentence. The silence in my head was louder than the voice had been.

“Kira?” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. But I felt something shift. A tension. An alertness. Like a dog pricking its ears toward a sound it couldn’t quite hear.

Then she made a noise.

A low whine. Yearning. Desperate. Nothing like the sarcastic, dismissive tone she’d been using two seconds ago.

Do you smell that?

I didn’t smell anything except rain and garbage and my own pathetic misery.

Smell what? I thought back.

That scent. That incredible scent. Cold and dark and… oh, Moon above. It’s like… like snow and dark chocolate and something burning. Something ancient.

I sat up slowly, my knees aching, my glasses somewhere on the ground behind me. The alley was empty. The rain was starting to thin.

Get up, Kira said. Get up right now.

“I’m not—”

GET UP. Follow that scent. NOW.

My body moved.

Not because I told it to. Because she told it to. My legs straightened. My feet turned. I started walking, and it was like being a passenger in my own body, my hands brushing wet brick walls, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

The scent grew stronger. I still couldn’t place it, but my body was reacting to it—my pulse racing, my skin flushing hot despite the cold rain. Kira was keening in the back of my mind, a sound of pure, shameless want.

He’s close, she whispered. He’s so close, Elara. Can you feel him? Can you feel the weight of him?

I could. A pressure in the air. A gravity that hadn’t been there before. The alley opened up into a quiet street lined with iron gates and climbing black roses, and I was walking toward the largest gate, the one with the thorns woven through the bars like a warning.

What are you doing? I thought, suddenly terrified. That’s private property. That’s—

The gate swung open under my hand.

I stumbled through. Into a garden. Into darkness. Into the densest concentration of that scent I’d felt yet, so thick it coated my throat, so potent my knees went weak.

And then I hit something solid.

A chest.

Hard. Warm. Immovable. My hands came up instinctively, palms pressing against muscle that felt like carved stone. The rain had stopped, or maybe it hadn’t, but I couldn’t hear it anymore. I couldn’t hear anything except the thunder of my own heartbeat.

A hand closed around the back of my neck.

Not gentle. Not cruel. Possessive. The grip of something that had never learned to hold softly and didn’t intend to start now. Thumb pressed against my pulse point. Fingers curled into the wet hair at my nape.

I looked up.

He was tall. He was terrifying. His eyes were liquid gold, burning in the dark like twin flames, and his face was all sharp angles and hard planes, and his expression was the expression of a man who had killed before and would kill again and would not lose sleep over either.

His voice, when it came, was low and cold and absolute.

“Trespassing in forbidden territory. Are you tired of living?”

I should have been terrified. I was terrified. My human mind was screaming at me to run, to apologize, to throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy.

But Kira—

Kira was thrilled.

Mate! she howled, and the sound of it vibrated through every cell in my body. He’s our Mate! Elara, do you understand? THIS is what an Alpha is supposed to feel like. Not that cheap imitation. THIS. Feel him. Feel his hand on your neck. Feel the way he’s holding you. Submit. Submit to him. Do it. DO IT.

My body went liquid.

I didn’t choose it. I didn’t want it. But my spine curved, my head tilting back, baring my throat to him in a gesture of surrender so primal it bypassed every rational thought.

A sound escaped my lips. A gasp. No—not a gasp. A moan. Soft and breathy and utterly mortifying.

The Alpha’s eyes flared brighter.

“Kill me,” I whispered, because I couldn’t look at him and I couldn’t look away. “Just kill me. No one cares about a Wolfless anyway.”

His grip tightened.

---

Kael was not a patient man.

He was not a merciful man. He was not the kind of man who tolerated weakness, or trespassing, or the touch of someone he hadn’t invited. He’d killed for less. He’d killed for nothing at all.

But the moment his hand closed around the girl’s neck, something inside him snapped.

The scent hit him first. Rain-damp hair and rose petals and something underneath that was just her—fragile and fierce and utterly, devastatingly unique. It flooded his senses. It drowned everything else.

Then Bane woke up.

Bane, his Lycan. Ancient. Brutal. The beast that had lived in his chest for centuries and had never once shown interest in anything that wasn’t violence or territory. Bane surged forward with a force that nearly knocked Kael off his feet, and his voice—Kael’s own voice, twisted and deepened by the beast—roared through his skull.

MATE!!

She’s bleeding. You’re hurting her. YOUR HAND IS ON HER NECK AND SHE’S BLEEDING AND YOU’RE

HURTING HER. LET HER GO. LET HER GO RIGHT NOW—

Kael’s fingers opened.

He didn’t mean to do it. He meant to hold on. He meant to drag her closer, to press his nose to her throat, to breathe her in until he couldn’t breathe anything else. But Bane’s rage was a physical force, and Kael’s hand released her like she’d burned him.

She’s crying, Bane snarled. She’s crying and she’s hurt and she’s ours. WHO DID THIS? WHO MADE HER

CRY? I’LL TEAR THEIR THROATS OUT. I’LL BATHE IN THEIR BLOOD. I’LL—

Kael’s jaw locked.

He forced his face into stillness. Forced his eyes to go cold. Forced his voice to come out flat and indifferent, because if he didn’t, he was going to pull her into his arms and never let her go, and she was small and shaking and clearly terrified, and he was not going to be the monster who broke his own Mate.

“Get out,” he said.

The words tasted like ash.

She stumbled backward. Her eyes were wide and wet and unreadable, and her mouth opened like she might say something, but nothing came out. Then she turned and ran, her footsteps splashing through puddles, her silhouette disappearing into the rain.

Kael stood motionless.

A shadow detached itself from the garden wall. Marcus, his Captain of the Guard. Old. Loyal. Discreet.

“Your Majesty,” Marcus said quietly. “She entered your private territory without authorization. Should I have her dealt with?”

Kael didn’t look at him.

He looked down at his hand. The hand that had held her neck. The hand that still carried the warmth of her skin, the ghost of her pulse, the faint trace of rose petals and rain.

His fingers curled into a fist.

“Check the PackNet livestream archives,” he said. His voice was low and rough and full of something that would have terrified anyone who knew him. “Find out who made her cry tonight.”

Marcus hesitated. “Your Majesty?”

Kael’s eyes lifted. Molten gold. Burning. Murderous.

“I want that man’s life.”